Darko Tresnjak

Darko Tresnjak is a prominent American theatre director and current Artistic Director at Hartford Stage. From 2002-2004 he was Director in Residence at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company where his productions included What the Butler Saw(2004),Heartbreak House(2002), and Amphitryon(2001). He has received the Alan Schneider Award for Directing Excellence, a T.C.G. National Theater Artist Residency Award, a Boris Sagal Directing Fellowship, an NEA New Forms Grant, two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships, and three San Diego Critics Circle Awards.

Darko Tresnjak was the Artistic Director of the Old Globe Shakespeare Festival in San Diego from 2004 to 2009. His directing credits at the Old Globe include Cyrano de Bergerac, Coriolanus, The Women, The Pleasure of His Company, All’s Well That Ends Well, Bell, Book and Candle, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, A Comedy of Errors, Antony and Cleopatra, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Pericles. He received four awards from the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle: for outstanding direction of Cyrano de Bergerac, The Winter’s Tale, and Pericles and for Excellence in Artistic Direction.

Tresnjak’s directing career began at the Williamstown Theatre Festival where over eight seasons he directed The Skin of Our Teeth, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Love of Three Oranges, Princess Turandot, The Blue Demon, The Winter’s Tale, Moving Picture, and Under Milk Wood. He has also directed at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Vineyard Theatre Company, and Blue Light Theater Company. From 2002-2004 he was Director in Residence at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company where his productions included What the Butler Saw, Heartbreak House, and Amphitryon.

Tresnjak grew up in Yugoslavia, the United States and Poland. He was educated at Swarthmore College and Columbia University and became an American citizen shortly after graduation. Between college and graduate school, he studied at the Martha Graham School, performed with numerous Philadelphia dance and theatre companies, and toured across the United States and Japan with Mum Puppettheatre. He is the recipient of grants from Theatre Communications Group, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Alan Schneider Award for Directing Excellence.